


A house of plenty

by RobinWritesChirps



Category: Hatchetfield Universe - Team StarKid
Genre: Alternate Reality, Autism Spectrum, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Not Canon Compliant, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27844180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinWritesChirps/pseuds/RobinWritesChirps
Summary: Raising a family of seven is not easy, nor is it ever quiet, but Tom and Becky give the best of themselves to it and wouldn’t have it any other way. Even when kids do get in the way in some important parts of married life.Alternate reality where they’re now a family. AU where they got back together when Tom got back from war and made bunch of babies.
Relationships: Becky Barnes/Tom Houston
Comments: 10
Kudos: 7





	A house of plenty

**Author's Note:**

> This doesn’t exactly matter for this story but just so you know, it’s set in the same AU as my fic "I thought I’d wait for you" (https://archiveofourown.org/works/27580337). Also, for the smut-averse: although you might get another impression at first, the rating is absolutely accurate, this is T rated, have no fear.

They woke up seven minutes before the alarm. Tom’s arms around her waist in a warm vice from behind, his face in the crook of her neck where he pressed many kisses, a hand on her stomach caressing with gentle fingers, Becky was spoiled with his love before she had the time to open her eyes. When she did, the clock stared back at her with its taunting handles pointing to just not long enough of her husband's company before the day would have to start. She sighed, pulling Tom's hands to her mouth, hot skin under her lips. She never ceased to marvel at how warm he was, a real heater even on the chilliest nights. Like a concentrated taste of home right around her.

"Morning, Mr Houston," she muttered in a tired voice - somewhere between the first pregnancy and the first baby, she had adopted constant exhaustion as a way of life. They had made seven now and the state had stuck.

"Hey," he said in that raspy morning voice she loved. "You look nice." He breathed her in deep and tightened his hold around her. "You smell nice."

She turned in his arms to face him. Soft remnants of slumber in his squinting eyes, a smile as bright as any summer sunshine. A leg pushed between hers and he kissed her, a hand pressing into her hair to keep her close.

"We have six minutes," Becky told him, smirking.

He kissed her again and his hand slid down to her stomach.

"I can do that."

A loud banging came at the door and made Becky groan with frustration into his shoulder.

"Mama, daddy, I think Eedie peed her bed!" Anna shouted, who had loud for only possible volume of speaking.

"No I didn't!" Edith protested. "I didn't!"

Tom and Becky looked at each other. With a chuckle, he disentangled from her and sat up, scratching the back of his head, making a mess of his already messy bed hair. At some time in the next few weeks, she expected he would ask her for a haircut to put some order back into what had overgrown a little and she would readily comply, but only if he asked.

"A'ight, I'm coming," he told the girls outside the door. He winked at Becky. "And I'll see you tonight, ma'am."

The accusation did turn out to be false. Edith was four and twice too bold to be ashamed − she had denied truly. She had always had a greater interest in the truth than in her own pride. Tom explained it all to Becky just a moment later, who was preparing breakfast while he was doing all the children’s hair as they sat there semi-neatly all in a row for him to do so. Two hairbands in his mouth, a brush in one hand and Edith's hair in the other, he told her how the girl had taken her glass of water and that of her sister, trying to ascertain how big of a puddle the bed could seep up before it leaked from underneath. Becky preferred not to imagine what sort of mischief she would inevitably inflict on the rest of them with the result of this experiment. She had only been caught when she had woken up her sister by trying to sneak into the hall to fetch more water from the bathroom.

"Well, someone should get a science kit for Christmas," Becky said, serving everyone a slice of toast − she had always loved this sight, nine plates all lined up on the kitchen table they were slowly starting to outgrow as the children were getting bigger. Tom was already working on making a proper one. "If she isn’t too naughty till then."

That had been her first mistake and half of the room burst into sudden fast-paced conversation about what their Christmas presents should be, what they wanted the holidays to look like, what their friends from school were getting, and how Edith should not be punished − or absolutely should, depending on who you listened to. Tom and Becky stared at each other with knowing smiles from across the kitchen table and Tom tried as he might to finish everyone’s hair as they were gesticulating, but the rest of breakfast never settled into quiet again. Becky asked herself how she had even expected that from a brood of seven.

When they were ready to go, all nine brown paper lunch bags in each respective backpack, the children were split. Miriam, David, John and Anna were given a kiss and a hug before they would walk to the bus stop at the end of the street and hop on to go to school, and Edith, Dina and Eliza were buckled into their seats at the back of the Fox-Body Mustang so that Tom could drop them off at his mother’s for the day. As soon as he drove away, Becky missed the excited chatter of so many kids in the sudden calm after the storm. One could get so used to a background of never quiet. She sat at her steering wheel, smiled to herself, and went to school.

Tom and Becky had worked at Hatchetfield High for some years, rather by coincidence than design. He had been employed in construction and woodworking when his boss had told him about a teaching opportunity in high school to replace the shop teacher who was retiring. Tom had halved his schedule to fit teaching hours into it, working and then teaching the work to younger generations. Around the same time, Becky had been given a chance to apply as the school nurse and she had been picked among all candidates without a moment’s hesitation. Often, they would spend lunch breaks together on the empty bleachers, chatting and reminiscing of days when life was so much simpler.

All day she thought of him with a grin all over her face, like she was no better than any of the high schoolers themselves. She thought of the promise made to see each other that night − time was ever so precious a resource when you chose to have as many children as they had. It was a beautiful sacrifice to make and one they had made gladly for the joy of raising wonderful children, but a sacrifice nonetheless. Still, no matter how busy and crowded the household, every evening Becky found Tom and rested into his embrace for the night, and that made her as lucky as she could have hoped for. In each other’s arms, they both forgot about all the days in the past when their lives had not been so happy nor lucky.

"Getting in trouble a little early today, aren’t we, Lex?"

Lex groaned in response, clutching a hand to her eye to hide the blood. Becky sat her down, patted her shoulder. Lex Foster was a frequent guest at the nurse’s office. She and Tom had a particular fondness for her, though the girl was a grump and a half and hard to tame or even to befriend. She lashed out often and would get into much more trouble if the two of them didn’t concert to save her from punishment whenever they could.

"Yeah, well, that’s what the dude's crotch would have looked like if I hadn’t been caught before I could hit back."

Patiently, Becky treated the cuts on her face, the black eye already starting to form. It was no mystery to her that Lex’s home was far from ideal and that she sought for attention in all the wrong ways at school. She also knew that the girl was too prideful to admit she needed help and for that reason, Becky offered it freely and often, but Lex feigned ignorance and the matter was dropped. No matter how often authorities were called, Pamela Foster would sneak her way out of trouble like no other.

"I won’t report you," she told Lex. "But _please_ , think about yourself. You can’t just go around getting into fights forever. You’re better than this."

She tried to give her an encouraging smile and for but a moment, there was softness in Lex’s eyes, a hint of hope that she might listen for once. That she might let them in. But it was gone and replaced by her usual quick wit as the girl jumped to her feet.

"I’m really not," she replied and left the nurse’s room.

After school hours, Becky picked up the older kids from Hatchetfield Elementary, who brightened up the ride with all the new stories of another day spent learning and growing. Miriam’s art project had been so well received that the teacher had hung her drawings on the wall for posterity. There was a new student in the big twins’ class and Anna had been eager to welcome her and make her a new best friend − chided by her brother who thought this had disrupted class and that she should have told her to sit still and listen. David stared out the window and smiled at his own thoughts. He often kept those to himself alone.

"Good day?" Tom asked her as he came home with the younger kids a while later than Becky. She could already imagine that his mother had enticed him into staying a little longer in her company. Tom was a great father perhaps because he had always been a great son, too.

"Yeah," she smiled. "Tom, we’ll have to do something about Lex and her sister…"

His brow knitted with concern and he nodded, but the conversation was lost into a sea of starving kids begging for a snack and Becky made a note to bring it up again the next day. For now, there was the never ending work of being a mother of seven, the most satisfying job in the world, hard as it was. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she spent some time outside the house for her yoga and self defense classes, but on Wednesdays it was Tom's turn to leave the kids to her as he left their little home for a few hours. He followed classes at the Hatchetfield Recreation Center, a new one every term to teach himself new skills. This year, he had taken up soap making and was already talking about making batches every few months to sink the cost of cleaning up a bunch of muddy kids every night. That was all the same to Becky and in a way, there was a whole different energy to the house when Tom wasn’t here. So long as he came home at the end of the day, she loved having the kids to herself too for the evening.

"Mama, can I go play outside?" Edith asked, already trying to straddle the dog for a proper mount leading to whatever adventure it was that the girl longed for.

Becky gently pulled her off of the poor animal who whimpered with relief, and pressed a loud kiss against her cheek which made her giggle.

"Not on your own," she said. "Find your sister and ask her."

Edith raced up the stairs on her short legs to knock loudly at Miriam’s door, who was the oldest. Whatever answer she found, Becky never knew, but neither of the girls came back down. In the living room, the boys and Anna were doing their homework at the coffee table while the twin girls babbled to each other on the couch. They both had a doll in their hands, though Dina was sucking on an arm as if it were candy and Eliza was pretending to cradle the baby. Becky knelt down to guide and help with the assignments the children were working on.

"It’s not _cut_ , it’s _cat_ ," Anna said with superiority, pointing at the word _cot_ on her page. "Really, Johnny, let me show you."

John and Anna were learning how to read simple words and David, who read very well already and far beyond his six years of age, was neither inclined to brag about the fact, nor to help them reach his level at all. Content with writing out everything his teacher had asked, he finished his work and put away his things neatly before retiring to his bedroom, no doubt to plunge himself into another book. For several years, the boy had been passionate about construction and buildings − maybe another good thing to keep in mind for Christmas coming around soon.

"Oh, daddy!" Eliza cried out all of a sudden, startling the older twins who had been quizzing each other on numbers.

She rushed to the door just in time to be the first to welcome Tom home, followed very quickly by her twin sister and Tom plucked both of them from the ground like they weighed nothing at all to cover them with kisses. When others sometimes joked meanly that after their two younger girls, they had finally had enough of making more kids, Becky and Tom retorted that perhaps they had just reached utter perfection after much practice. This was just as mean, of course, and they would never dare to let such a thing land on their older kids’ ears. Still, all their children were special in their own eyes and Dina and Eliza not any less than the others. They were so different than each other, too, despite looking identical. Eliza was everything social and content. She spoke the few words she knew with all the conviction in the world, chatty as her older siblings at only a little over two years of age. Her sister, perhaps to make herself all the more special, had not yet spoken a single word. Perhaps she never would.

"I’ll make dinner," Becky said. "Who’s helping?"

Every night, they picked a couple of the kids to help out with cooking however they could and though some of them were more of a hurdle than a helper, it never hurt to start young and it was a good bonding time. Today, the boys offered themselves − this was lucky. By some strike of good fate, they both took after their father, attentive and eager to do what was asked of them. John was more of a talker than David, but with Becky facilitating, the three of them made a perfect team and dinner was done before the younger ones had a chance to cry hunger.

"Food in your mouth, baby, not on your sister," Tom chided.

Dinner was always a circus and after eight years of being a mother, Becky was starting to doubt this would ever change. Tom had volunteered himself to help the little ones eat as he did every night. Edith was at an age where she ate everything with her fingers no matter how many spoons, forks and knives you provided her with − tonight, it was pasta but Becky had no doubt this would have gone no different for soup. Anna had become somewhat of a picky eater and tried to sneak vegetables from her plate onto John’s, who protested loudly against the exchange. Miriam was chatting merrily to David, who only looked and smiled when he thought she was expecting him to. Becky and Tom shared a glance and smirked.

As soon as he was done eating, David excused himself upstairs, followed quickly by Miriam − the bathrooms were a war zone in the evening and they preferred to shower before their younger siblings left a mess in their trail later. He only popped his head back into the kitchen to let his parents know the bathrooms were free.

"I take the monsters," Tom said, thinking of Edith, Anna and John, who were four and five and by far the hurricanes of the family − their luck had seen fit to bless them with three balls of extroverted energy, each as different from one another as could be in their demeanors and preferences about absolutely everything. "You can take the girls."

Becky pulled him in for a quick kiss, smiling. She played with a curl of his hair.

"It’s so hot when you take care of them, you know that?" She told him in a whisper, for you never knew what pair of tiny ears could be spying.

Tom smirked. His palm pressed at her waist, pulled her close.

"Maybe I’ll take care of you too," he said and kissed her lips again. "And we’ll see if that’s hot too."

"I’ll take bets," she replied.

Like a rule of nature, the house had to fall into utter chaos before it could settle down again. As both of them wrangled up the kids they were to bathe, the upstairs was soon soon swarming with the naked butts of too many giggling kids to chase after and Becky told herself that raising a family was as good a workout as any. The bathtub was more toys and bubbles than water and Dina and Eliza kept splashing around with ecstatic howls of laughter, but one limb at a time, they got about as clean as Becky was capable of achieving on her own. She did not envy poor Tom. Even from across the hall she could hear the shouts of three high pitched voices clashing against each other.

"You’re not as wild as that, are you?" She asked the toddlers and was met with a splash of warm water in the face.

Still, she pulled them out, wriggly little naked worms, and wrapped a soft towel around each of them like the most delicious snack she could think of.

"I’ll take her," Tom said, appearing out of nowhere at the door as soon as Becky was done. He picked one of the girls in his arms. "I’m giving the kids some time to…" The sound of something falling to the ground was heard from a few rooms over. "… unwind. Before bed."

He pulled down the hood of the towel to have a look at which of the girls he was holding − even dripping wet and yawning with exhaustion, he could always tell them apart. He wrapped Dina over his shoulder like a potato sack to carry her to her room. Eliza raised her arms to be picked up and Becky told herself with a strange nostalgia that she would miss that very much when even her youngest would grow too big to be held in her arms. In the mean time, she enjoyed it every night, the feather weight of her little one against her.

"Sweetie, bed time is in half an hour," she told Miriam upon entering the bedroom.

As soon as the toddlers had transitioned out of their cribs, it had become evident that Dina craved a space of her own, a small room she would not have to share. There had been the diagnosis, of course, doctors suggesting that she was very likely on the spectrum just like her brother, just like her father, but even more than the two of them, she desperately craved to be left to herself and her sensations when she needed. Their Miriam had a heart of gold and had gladly offered her the room that had been hers, instead moving in with her youngest sister. It was a strange arrangement, a toddler still in diapers and a fourth-grader rooming together, but as the girls had not complained, neither had the parents.

"Yes," Miriam said. "I know."

She was drawing at her desk again and Becky leaned over to have a look, kissing the girl’s fiery red hair to show her support. Miriam had always had an interest in expressing herself creatively. Becky and Tom loved it all the more because neither of them was particularly gifted in all things artistic.

"I love it, that’s beautiful," she said, which was not even a white lie. The page was covered with various types of cats and delightfully charming. On her bed, their very own cats were purring.

"Thank you, mom," the girl said and kept drawing.

Becky read Eliza a short toddler book, only a few felt pages the girl knew by heart. She fell asleep seconds before the ending and with a kiss on her forehead, Becky tucked her in tight and cozy.

In the next room, Tom was reading a story as well to Anna and Edith and the two of them proved themselves much more chatty listeners than their sister. Often, it was a competition of who could ask the more questions.

"Does the princess have a sword?" Edith was asking. She was crouched on her pillow, not at all in any state of falling asleep soon.

"Does she have a prince charming who’ll come and marry her?" Anna asked, tucked much more comfortably under her covers. "Are they gonna have babies? How many?"

Tom winked at Becky on her way out and she still felt as charmed as she had all those years ago the first time they’d met. At the next door, she found only one of the boys.

"Where’s John?"

David was sitting with his back upright against the headboard, looking so much more solemn than his young years with a book much too big for his little hands he was reading diligently. His grandparents had given him a book of the 100 most interesting buildings in the world for his sixth birthday. By now, he would have read about hundreds more if he’d picked up another book but this one was a favorite for bedtime and Becky would have found it odd to see him read something else by now.

"I don’t know," he replied.

Downstairs, Becky heard the dog barking and she supposed she had an answer. She sighed.

"Sweetie," she told him gently in a low voice, afraid to disturb the peace their elder son was so keen on keeping, "Finish your chapter and go to sleep."

David took a few seconds to react at all and his mouth narrowed into the faintest hint of a grimace, and she knew that he was not pleased with the instruction. He was also too righteous to protest it.

"Yes, mama," he said quietly and kept on reading.

She pressed a kiss on top of his dark hair.

"Goodnight, love."

"Goodnight," he replied and read on without interruption.

She did not have to go all the way downstairs to find her other son. Climbing stairs two steps at a times, John was as busy as a bee cleaning up all the toys from the living room. He was barging into every room to put them away without a care if he woke anyone up. Becky barred his way, her arms outstretched in the narrow hall.

"So," she told him gently, "How about I tuck you in and tell you a story? It’s bed time, darling."

But John was small enough to pass under her arms and only opened Miriam’s door long enough to throw a few plush animals inside.

"I don’t have time for stories, mama, there’s still lots of toys downstairs."

She bit her lip to stop herself from laughing at the poor boy. If only such spirit of helpfulness would strike all of his siblings every day of their lives. She seized him under the armpits to carry him to bed and though he was unhappy to be interrupted, a good hug before sleep convinced him just right.

"Dina’s in the closet," he muttered before closing his eyes. "Night, mama."

So she was. Sucking on her thumb, Dina’s big blue eyes stared at her as Becky picked her up to put her back to bed. This habit was about as customary as putting her to bed the first time. Becky wondered if they should perhaps find a mattress that would fit the closet, redecorate the place more to the girl’s taste, make it a space of her own. She would have to present the idea to Tom. Another time, though. For now, she had pressing issues.

She was giddy as ever as she made her quiet way back to the master bedroom. Even Edith and Anna had settled for the night, she heard, which could only mean that her husband, her beloved Tom was no longer spoken for tonight.

"Hey babe…"

The excitement was gone all of a sudden, replaced with something much more warm, something fond and comfortable. Tom had gone back to their bedroom to change into his pajamas, but the evening had evidently been too tiring to keep himself awake a moment longer. He laid there across the bed with his pajama top unbuttoned and the pants hooked around his ankles, as if slumber had taken him so suddenly he had not been able to dress himself whole. She wanted to laugh, but above all she wanted him comfortable and well rested and with some effort, she pushed him around under the blankets. It seemed that her time for fun was not come yet.

"Well, goodnight," she told him and in his sleep, Tom made some funny sound, a wordless mumble. He scooted closer to her. "I love you."

"Mmhloveyoutoo…"

Becky chuckled. Grabbing her phone, she put on an alarm to wake up long before having to get up the next morning, then she wrapped Tom’s arms around her waist and went to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT! ANY COMMENT! You don’t need an AO3 account to comment!


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